Arrive together. Find. Antique shop. The teams don’t like it. Lost in the Casbah! Lost in the Casbah! Get clue and pendant. Head to film studio. Yield A Head! Bama (and others). Want to Yield Barbies. Hours Of Operation’d! Yield inside.

Our teams start the day at a Barber camp (no, that was TAR 7) located east of the Atlantic, west of the Sahara, south of the Atlas Mountains, and north of Hell. At 5:30 AM, Tyler and James set out toward a Tequila Moroccan sunrise and make tracks for Casablanca. Do we really want two winning teams in a row with someone named Tyler?

They say they would rather take Bama to the Final Three than the Blondes (a.k.a. the Barbies or the Beauty Queens (BQs) in this summary). Me, I’d rather take Bama (or at least Karlyn) to a therapy group. If you recall from Lasann, the Blondes were non-elim’d, and thus Marked for Elimination, or Doom, or Easy Identification, or something. More about that in a bit.

One minute later, Bama assumes the mat. They too want the Blondes gone, which makes you wonder if the three other teams plotted this out at the Barber camp while talking to Tiki, Ronde, Miller, Samuel, Floyd, and Alfalfa. Lyn says she used to love road trips, but she’s getting weary of them now. Um, could it be because your teammate might be making them weary, hmmm?

At 5:47, Rob and Kimberly prepare themselves for another day of proving how loving they are by wanting to tear each other apart. (Somewhere, Christie glares at Colin.) Kimberly speaks of how she’s been keeping Rob motivated so that he won’t quit. Move along, no dramatic irony to see here. Anyway, they want to ride off into the Moroccan sunset (and pass Paul and Amie) with the million dollars and a ring and a date. The ring will be through Rob’s nose as Kimberly leads him around, and the date will be Kimberly with Peter.

These three teams head into the seemingly treacherous (or “janky,” as Rob calls it, or was he doing his best Velma impression?) Atlas Mountains. Not that an atlas would help any of them; after all, this bunch can get lost in an elevator. Also, if you really want treacherous, Bruck and BvM could have the All-Star teams drive here in Bolivia.

During the drive, Kimberly auditions for her future Animal Planet gig by complaining about all the dogs on the side of the road. Then she says they’re rams, but Marc Bulger and Torry Holt are nowhere to be found. It turns out they’re goats. E, I, E, I, D’ohhh!

While all this is going on, Dustin and Kandice finally get to make their go of it at 6:16 AM. Dustin says they feel the other teams’ coolness toward them, but at least they have each other. Does it sound like they might be second-guessing their decision to run a standoffish and “take no prisoners” Race, which had served them well until last episode? Dustin adds that they’ll catch the other teams so quickly they won’t know what hit them. Considering that the chances of them being eliminated with their 30-minute penalty have increased dramatically with only three other teams in the mix, she’d better be right.

The teams start reaching Casablanca:

“I am shocked – SHOCKED! – to find that DAWing is going on in here!”“Your ratings, sir!”“Oh, thank you very little.”

Tyler and James find a local to lead them to the Quartier des Cabooses, but he has no idea where Ray and Yolanda would be. So instead he helps them to the Quartier des Habous. Karlyn becomes upset a la Rob in Vietnam that none of these Moroccans have the decency to speak English. Rob opts to do a Chinese Fire Drill in the middle of traffic, much to Kimberly’s consternation. It gets them no closer to the Quartier.

Tyler and James arrive at the marked parking place first and find their clue after a little bit of searching. It’s a Roadblock, and a Disgusting Food one at that: “Who’d eat a mile of Camel?” Actually, it’s eating a pound of camel meat that they procure from one stall, have cooked at another stall, and subsequently dispose of in the third stall from the left. Note to future contestants, if there are any: It’s probably not a good idea to be a vegetarian on the Amazing Race.

So James decides to chow down. Their local shows him and Tyler the proper stall to get the meat. James then grinds it, spices it, and skewers it, which is what some folks wanted to do to the Barbies at the beginning of the Race for one reason, but would like to do to them differently now.

The unskewered BQs manage to vault all the way up to second, courtesy of a bewildered local who guided them in. Out-Of-Context Quote Of The Day: After they park the car, one of them says to the local, “Come, come, come!” Followed by, “It’s not every day you get to do this.” PTC, call your office.

As Bama recruits a cabbie to lead them, James starts his repast. But wait a minute: Camel kebab is actually pretty tasty! “It’s like a really good burger,” he says. But he doesn’t supersize. Kandice decides to do the RB for her team.

Rob and Kimberly have trouble communicating with the natives. Rob looks like he’s doing a mini-hula by making waves with his arm a few times while trying to get directions from someone. He then breaks into the Timewarp, which the local understands.

Speaking of “shocked – SHOCKED,” Tyler and James are astounded to see Kandice, and not one of the others, about to join in the feast next. So far, so good for the BQs, who have lopped quite a bit off their 46-minute deficit.

Tyler and James overcome their shock enough to finish first and get their next clue: Fly to Barcelona and find this man:

What they don’t know is he’s actually in the south of England working for a hotel owner who blows almost as many gaskets as Rob. When the boys drive off toward the airport, they decide that eating a rubber traffic cone marking the parking area would NOT be good for extra credit, so they ride off with it stuck under their wheel instead.

Returning from Frank N. Furter’s house, Rob and Kimberly manage to reach the Quartier. Rob is frantically looking from shop to shop for the clue box. He tells Kimberly (and anyone within earshot) that he doesn’t know where they are. He also starts calling Kimberly “dude.”

Kandice prepares her meat (get your mind out of the gutter. Don’t worry, it’ll be back in there soon enough) and tells Mohammed the cook that she’d like it done medium well. Well, that stands to reason since, for the last few seasons, TAR has been neither rare nor well done. To the chagrin of male viewers, Kandice does not pull a Debbie by unbuttoning her pants before eating.

Rob, meanwhile, does what he and Kimberly do best: give American tourists a bad name (namely, that of Kendra). He starts asking locals “Clue? Clue?” They don’t answer, “Yes, he needs one, ” or “Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the rope.” In Rob’s mind, the producers briefed all 1 zillion residents of Casablanca on what a clue and the clue box looked like. So he heads into another shop, with Kimberly arguing, “Why here?” Showing his logical prowess, Rob replies, “Why not?” And he adds, “Stop second-guessing me!” just so Kimberly knows her place in this prospective marriage.

“Of all the clue boxes in all the cities in all the world, they had to hide this one.”

Lyn and Karlyn aren’t having much luck finding the clue box either. Given that they started second and arrived at the parking last, they’re a bit on the volatile side. (Which, especially for Karlyn, is different from usual how?)

Again, Rob calls Kimberly “dude;” I never thought I’d miss hearing “baby” every other minute. He’s still losing it because he can’t find the elusive clue box. So he tries Plan B: throwing his arms up in despair because “We’re outcasts here.” Well, one of you is, anyway.

If a cartoon were to be made of the Bickersons and Bama searching for this clue box, it would be like one of the old Looney Tunes cartoons with Bugs Bunny racing the tortoise. Whereas Rob and Kimberly are zipping all over the place losing their sanity, Lyn and Karlyn are strolling along as if to say, “I’llllll beat youuuuu, Mis-ter Robbbbb!” Trouble is for Bama, unlike the tortoise, they’re not getting anywhere.

Rob’s insane search for the box leads him and Kimberly back to the parking area, where the BQs have returned from eating and are about to conscript their local into taking them to the airport. Kimberly has an idea; she wants to ask the blondes where the clue is, knowing how helpful they can be (heavy sarcasm). But Rob somehow prefers the certainty of not finding out from the blondes to MAYBE finding out from the blondes, so he tells Kimberly not to ask. After all, he has a better idea, or better oobies, or something; he approaches the local, who ignores him after the BQs pressured him not to help.

As the BQs and their loyal Casablancan drive off toward the airport and the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Rob uses a colorful metaphor for the Barbies. He vows never to watch the Miss America pageant again, until he realizes no one watches it now anyway. The Barbies make the understatement of the year in saying Rob has an anger management problem. Then Rob signals for a touchdown and lets out a whimpering “Help?” He still hasn’t found the clue, but at least he’s found the first commercial break.

Back from the break, Rob and Kimberly and Lyn and Karlyn decide to get further lost together. But before that happens, they finally spot the box out in Plain Sight (once Fran and Barry put it back) and grab their Roadblocks. Kimberly has to do it because Rob has been gutted by the Lazy Ass Kim rule. Lyn will ingest for Bama.

En route to the airport, Tyler says he’d like Bama to get into the Final Three (F3) because they’re weaker physically. James adds that it’d be good for he and Tyler to make it also. That reminds me of my mother-in-law on our wedding day saying that she hoped we’d have lots and lots of grandchildren. My father-in-law quipped, “Shouldn’t they have children first?” In her vehicle and with her Moroccan boy-toy, Dustin says she’d give up Christmas presents for the next five years to get on a different plane than Rob and Kimberly. Kandice agrees to dispense with eating camel meat, which Dustin protests as unfair. Besides, it isn’t Lent yet.

Lyn and Kimberly get and start grinding their meat. Rob only tells Kimberly three times to “push it in there.” You may now return your mind to the gutter. Unable to come up with a childbirth metaphor, Lyn compares preparing the meat to cooking dinner for her kids. Dead camel, dead cow, dead chicken, Soylent Green, it’s all the same.

Then the Roadblock turns from “Who Can Eat the Fastest?” to “Whose Teammate Is More Obnoxious and Less Supportive?” Rob takes the early lead, with Kimberly telling him, “Babe (whoomp, there it is!), I need you to not talk to me.” He tosses up his hands yet again and says, “All right.” He keeps his promise for about 30 seconds until Kimberly starts with the spices. Then he has to intervene because Kimberly doesn’t know how to skewer the meat.

As Lyn and Kimberly wait for Mohammed to cook the meat, they discuss the burning question of the day: how’d the BQs get there so quickly? Cut to the BQs who wonder whether the others think they cheated. Kimberly is so not hungry, and considering her response to the cow lips in Madagascar, this may not be her favorite culinary delight either.

Lyn gets her meat first. She starts eating, but it’s hot. I’ll transcribe as much of this laughable coaching from Karlyn (did she learn from Peter?) as I can:

Karlyn(indignantly): You just need to hurry up.Lyn: I can’t just swallow hot food.K(staring forward in disgust): You gotta move quicker.L: Karlyn, I am! Damn, I let you do yours, you let me do mine!(K mutters something about L chewing instead of contemplating. Later)K: Are you serious? I mean, you’re in a race too!L: I’m racing, and if you’d shut the hell up, I could do better!K: I don’t think so!(Later still)K: Oh my goodness, you’re almost finished. Just put it in your mouth and swallow it! Geez, how can you be that close and just not put it in your mouth and swallow it? L: Shut the hell up!K: You don’t tell me to shut up! You don’t run my mouth! You could have been finished!

At this point, Sam offers to start playing “As Time Goes By.” Karlyn sticks a skewer through his neck.

I’m starting to wonder whether Karlyn is the grownup version of Dee, that smart-alecky kid on “What’s Happening!”

No, that’s impossible; Dee occasionally was humorous and made sense.

A chastened Lyn sulks her way over to Mohammed and gets the clue. She’s now wondering whether George Karlyn would have made a better partner.

Karlyn keeps sniping at Lyn on the ride to the airport, saying that she likes how supportive she’s been acting and if Lyn can’t handle it, she can sit on a pin and rotate ignore her. Both they and Rob and Kimberly are still fixated on how well the BQs are doing, Rob not being fond of the blondes’ “aggressiveness.” That’s another thing for Kimberly to take into consideration before the prenup wedding. And speaking of fixated, is it me or is Kimberly’s tank top plunging lower as this episode goes on?

At the airport, the Barbies dump off their local after smooching the heck out of him. They’re hot on the heels of Tyler and James as they all look for a flight to Barcelona. Then the girls come up with some strategery: Why not ask the boys if they’d conveniently trip, or otherwise let them pass, if it came to a footrace to the mat? (This is known as the Mary Poppins Horse Race Gambit.) Tyler and James laugh it off, but then the BQs ask whether it’d be better to take them to F3 than Rob and Kimberly. Their reply: Not only “No,” but “Hell, no.” Still, the boys forgot their pendant at the last Pit Stop, nearly allowing Bama to beat them. Kandice then gets the sense that all the other teams are plotting against them. That number again, Kandice, is 1-800-WELL-DUH!

Nothing else interesting happens at the airport, as all four teams get bunched on the same flight to Barcelona with Victor Laszlo and Ilsa, and I don’t feel like any more Casablanca references. So much for the blondes’ hot start!

Once in the ancient Catalonian city, the usual Late TAR Episode Mad Cab Scramble begins, with the usual exhortations to drive rapido. Their destination is . . . a shrubbery! (Stinger) Actually, a shrubbery maze in Parc del Laberint.

The BQs are worried, and well they should be. I think this Marked for Elimination idea is a great one, especially in a late stage such as this. It shifts all the pressure onto the team that wasn’t eliminated. Not only that, the other teams can work to make sure that happens! Many of the teams from TAR 7 are wishing they had that against Romber, but then again, Romber never finished last. There’s always All-Stars, however. But anyway.

The teams scramble to the maze, but surprise! The maze CLOSED at 7:30 PM and doesn’t reopen until 10 AM the next day. At least everyone will get a good night’s sleep for a change.

Milling about before the gates open the next morning, the teams start the next game: Taxi Procurement for when the clue in the maze is obtained. The blondes have no problem getting a construction worker to reserve a taxi for them. Rob thinks that’s a good idea, so he decides that unlike at the Quartier, Kimberly would do better with her “sexuality” to flirt with the workers and get a cab that way. This irks the BQs, who think the couple is just copying them. Well, um, they are. There’s no 30-minute penalty for copying. Before Kimberly finishes the call, the boys ask her to get a second cab, which she does.

The park opens and the teams scatter around the maze. They pass each other, the Queen of Hearts, the March Hare, and since the maze was designed by Escher, themselves on opposite sides of the hedgerows or upside down beneath them. Only Lyn and Karlyn aren’t running; I mean, they’re in a race too! Eventually, all 16 teams arrive in the center of the maze where their duplicates vanish or return to Calvin, and they get hold of their Detour, which I’ll get to in a minute.

More confusion ensues as the Racers try to get out of the maze; for example, Rob yells out, “This way, guys, this way! . . . Nope, not this way.” This is known as the Pink Panther Conundrum: Dead end, dead end, deadend deadend deadend deadend deadennnnnnnd . . . .

Love them or hate them, if there’s one thing Bama has, it’s a pretty good sense of direction. They find the perimeter of the maze and an alternate exit, leaving the BQs to wonder how Bama walks and finds stuff. Foot’s on the other hand now, huh?

Phil no longer says this, so I will: A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each of which may cause drowsiness and should not be taken if pregnant. The choice:

Lug It. Teams have to find the Maremagnum P.I. bridge at the end of Las Ramblas, where they’d have to find a number of nine-foot festival giants (or the old Soviet women’s basketball team), many of which can be seen in the U.S. as well. The teams will have to select two, climb inside and lug them more than a mile to a square and find a festival giant woman there (no, not Rosie O’Donnell) who will give them their next clue.

Lob It. In a miniature version of the annual tomato fight in Bunol (which, oh by the way, is nowhere near Barcelona, but considerably south) called the Tomatina, the teams will head to an unnamed square where they’ll have to make tomato puree and find a clue hidden in a pile of tomatoes. But! All the while, they’ll have tomatoes thrown at them. Here’s footage of either what the real Tomatina looks like, or maybe the most recent RTVW peep meet.

Now Bama was resourceful in getting out of the maze, but in getting from the maze to whichever Detour they choose? Not so much. They were the only ones who definitively did not arrange for a cab. The Barbies and Rob and Kimberly collect their cabs and go. The boys . . . wonder what happened to their cab as the second commercial break occurs.

Turns out Tyler and James’ cab never showed up, so they along with Bama head to the nearest main road and try to flag one. For a while, it seems like they’re in the No DAWing Zone because they keep getting passed. Finally, they succeed. Bama goes on to whine about the Barbies getting a cab first. Um, maybe it was because they had someone CALL for one?

The BQs decide that the ‘maters may take a while, so they opt for Lug It. Tyler and James reason that it might be good to stick with the Barbies to ensure their elimination, so they also decide on Lug It. Rob and Kimberly choose Lob It. Lyn wants to lob tomatoes at Karlyn, but who doesn’t?

Rob and Kimberly arrive at the tomato Detour and start sifting through the pile of tomatoes. Suddenly, every TAR summary writer in the history of TARSucks/RTVW emerges from the trees and begins pelting them with their own stash of ‘maters. Kimberly yells “Ow!” as she’s hit upside the head by a lob from strid333. Distracted, Rob throws back at Michel and ARNutz, but they easily step aside and avoid them. Kimberly’s noggin becomes a tomato magnet as Bebo and Pendragon pelt her. “This is stupid,” she says while KObrien_fan hurls a strike. “We should do the other one.” Rob is so taken with his pointless – and futile – attack on Draco Malfoy and Seana, he’s not getting much accomplished.

Kimberly gets nailed yet again, not by Rob, but by Breezy and her DD. Then Landru and Team Joisey succeed in knocking her upside the haid. Now, riddle me this: the producers made the family Racers wear headgear when they went curling in Canada, so why are they unprotected here?

Flo imitation 1: Kimberly declares she’s had enough and wants to do Lug It instead.Rob: Just do the damn task! It’s too late!K: It’s NOT too late!R: I’m not doing it.K:(explodes) LISTEN TO MEEEEEE!! . . . Stop paying attention to them! (as Rob keeps hurling tomatoes at Swami, ginger, and Canada Girl. At this point, FesterFan1, anotherkim, idiotcowboy, and Cyndimaus fall over each other in a heap of laughter.)R: I’m getting hit!K: I’m done! (Flo imitation 2; she stomps off)R: Why can’t you be tough? We’ve been here for five minutes!(More convulsive laughter from Lisapooh, Devious Weasel, and J Slice, among others.)

The BQs work their way to the bridge, which they were near but didn’t see until they . . . turned around. They squat under their giantesses, lift up, and move out. Thus begins the Barcelona version of a Sausage Race in Milwaukee.

Back at the Field of Ketchup, Kimberly has returned, but she continues to get bonked more than a referee at Browns Stadium. She does her third Flo impression, yelling that they’ll be 30 minutes behind the Barbies and running off crying. The ever-compassionate Rob cheers her up by saying, “Way to go, Kim, way to cry just because you’re getting hit by a couple tomatoes. You just threw in the damn towel!”

The summary writers continue to snicker through the third commercial break.

Since Rob cannot get Kimberly to “suck it up” (as Ray would have put it), he asks their cabbie how long it would take to go to the other Detour. Over 20 kilometers. Wearily, Kimberly agrees to give it one more go. Quickly, she’s hit by fruit from Surveysez and emydi. But just as she says the task will take forever, Rob squishes a few tomatoes and finds the small clue. They must now head to the Pit Stop at Palau (isn’t that in the Pacific?) Nacional de Mont Juic. Before returning to the cab, they change shirts (and more? We’re not shown, which makes me wonder). All that drama, and they’re currently in first place. They smooch and make out up in the cab, but Rob still can’t resist telling her to “have a little faith.” Rule 1: Rob is always right. Rule 2: If Rob is ever wrong, see Rule 1.

Our Margaret Dumont impersonators, Dustin and Kandace, are lost. They unburden themselves of the giants and ask for directions. The blondes get told they have to go straight up a street for 10-15 minutes. I doubt you’d find that in any TripTik, but it sounds good to them! This allows Tyler and James to catch up to them. They trade quips such as, “Dude, I’m such a hot freakin’ giant chick right now!” and “I’m up a giant chick’s skirt.”

From sophomore year of high school, we return to the square of Where the Paolos’ Next Meal is Coming From as Bama arrives at the tomato pile, once they (along with Tyler and James) got out of traffic. The summary writers return, and Karlyn is immediately plunked by Fishercat, to which she replies, “Bastard.” They then start arguing about doing this Detour and whose idea it was, as more tomatoes rain down on them from volsfan, dajaki, and mysticwolf. To the dismay of the writers, Karlyn actually finds the clue fairly quickly after she and Lyn had smooshed quite a few tomatoes. But they give Bama a rousing ovation as they depart . . . mainly because Bama was leaving! They too make for the Pit Stop, and they too make amends in the cab. Karlyn blames it on her inability to handle stress. That number again, Karlyn, is 1-800-WELL-DUH!

Those directions weren’t all that helpful to either the Barbies or the boys, so they ask again where they need to go, which is the Plaza de Sant Felip Neri. (I know where that is; it’s a parish near my old house, but I digress.) At this point the two teams come to a fork in the road, and they take it, each going a different way. The Barbies know they have to put some distance between them and the boys if they want to stay alive.

Their cabbie drops Rob and Kimberly off at the Palau, and they immediately head up the long staircase toward Phil and quite a tomato (as it were) of a senorita. They win the leg and are in F3. Oh, and they get a Travelocity-supplied trip to Barbados, complete with a voucher for “spaa” treatment, as Phil says. Kimberly says they have more to gain with the million. In a touch of irony, it’s Rob’s turn to cry as he says the million would go a long way to starting a family with this woman. CYG’S STONE COLD LOCK: Humor Rob and pretend to be shocked by his on-air proposal to Kimberly on the CBS Early Show.

More importantly, the penalty clock is now ready for the BQs, who edge out the boys to the giant female at the plaza. Both snare cabs and head to the Palau. Tyler and James are worried that Bama may be way behind.

No such luck, however; the three remaining teams all arrive at the Palau pretty much at the same time. Now the race will come down to who finds the mat first. Neither the BQs nor the boys are sure where it is. Bama sees the steps and surmises that up is the way to go. The other two teams are running around like the cast of It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, unable to see the “big W.” The BQs especially take off in the wrong direction; once again, if they had only. turned. around. Bama finishes second and becomes the first female team in any F3. Not bad for a team that hasn’t won a leg yet, but the only leg that MUST be won is the last one.

Tyler and James and Dustin and Kandice both finally learn that they want to be going up. Rather anticlimactically, the boys take third and the last spot in F3.

The Vince Guaraldi music starts playing as the Barbies make the long ascent to the mat to learn of their second last-place finish in a row, and their Philimination with no time penalty necessary (and it would have finished them off even if they’d gotten up the steps before the other two teams). That Spanish babe with Phil could give those two a run for their money in any pageant. Dustin and Kandice say they didn’t do anything halfway, and they hope they broke the stereotype of playing with their tiaras. After all, now they’re sitting on them.

The remaining three give the usual yada yada yada bravado as to why they’ll inevitably win the million. Who will it be: Rob and Kimberly, Bama, or the Boys? Watch next week anyway.

Or at least read Jims’ Finale Summary as he tells you about the Obligatory Tandem Skydive; the stress of traveling in planes, trains, and automobiles; and the million-dollar finish line, which looks like it’s on Lake GitcheeGoomeeNoonieWawa.